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Recently, I was in the program of Maybrit Illner and was supposed to talk about how "the internet" is related to the attack in Halle. However, I had to interrupt myself on almost every other sentence. Otherwise I would have used a word in which Mrs. Illner had asked to explain it to the audience.
In the spring of this year, shortly after Christchurch, New Zealand's massacre, I felt the same way: I should speak to social educators who are concerned with the prevention of right-wing youth extremism. In my talk, I tried to explain why the culprit in New Zealand had said at the beginning of his video: "Subscribe to PewDiePie."
PewDiePie is the most successful YouTuber in the world. He usually does let's play and entertainment videos. Why is someone so implicated in this act involved? That's because "Subscribe to PewDiePie" had long since become a meme. A meme that circulated in parts of the gamer scene, on image boards and even among hackers. Here, the assassin of Christchurch saw his audience. He spoke to her with a wink. "I am one of you".
If many unfamiliar words appeared to you in the previous section, they are no different than they were to my listeners in that room. And that is problematic. After all, how do you tackle the radicalization of adolescents that are often online these days without understanding what they are doing online? Without knowing the toolbox of their opponents?
For many there is no German translation
Our society seems incapable of talking about the mechanisms of modern radicalization. Mind you, the mechanisms of radicalization. Not their origins, they are the same as always. Not the politics behind it, it's the same as always. Namely: against the others. But the look of radicalization has changed. And we can hardly adequately talk about it in public. Because the words are unknown.
I was often asked to "then just speak German". But there is simply no German translation for most of these phenomena. Not only the words are unknown, but also the concepts. Dogpiling, for example, refers to the agreed massaging of a single person in their comments, which looks to the person as a spontaneous shitstorm. An approach that has only become a standard tool of violence on the Internet.
But even seemingly harmless humor accounts, such as the one by PewDiePie contribute with jokes about Jews, about Muslims and women to radicalization. And globally networked right-wing extremists are docking on these platforms - not accidentally but systematically. The new rights skillfully plays with shifted meanings, with irony, hints and deniability.
Column by Sascha Lobo
That makes the scene elusive and difficult to attack. And so many public debates are at the same level: video games allegedly make people violent, the Internet needs to be monitored more closely, and the Dark Web is probably the culprit.
A cartoon frog should startle teachers
Ignorance of web phenomena can lead to the association that all memes are somehow evil. Or on imageboards, only frustrated young white men hated Jews hating. But that's not correct.
Like almost all the phenomena of the Internet, these spaces, these means of expression and also their anonymity offer much protection for people. They offer society and community. They offer an extension of your own horizon. Memes and games have long been vehicles of intercultural exchange because they are shared internationally. God knows, I might not have survived my puberty so well without the warm online society of my youth.
But the sense of community on the net can also be abused. In order to draw young people who do not find social support elsewhere in networks of right-wing ideology. First humorous. Then ironically. Then repeated. Then seriously.
If you want to oppose something, you have to understand the scene and its mechanisms. It is not enough for detectives to be trained in this and to develop a deeper understanding of the scene of international rights. Teachers need to understand what kind of humor can be dangerous. You need to be alert when one of your students is running around with a cartoon frog button. Therapists need to be prepared to work with victims of online violence.
The overlooked room strengthens extremists
We need to talk more with young people about what they are doing. Not controlling, but with sincere interest and respect. And even the general public, the lucky ones who are neither detectives nor pedagogues, should at least be told the most important terms. So it would be nice if we were able to deal with phenomena such as Memes, 8chan, Dark Web, Surface Web, Incels, Streaming or Twitch more frequently in articles and television reports, without explaining the English terms in a timid and understandable way.
Because their obscurity is welcome to the right. Extremists have always been the ones who have mastered the latest technologies first. Those were always where the public debate was not yet. The overlooked room strengthens them.
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And when we talk about right-wing extremism in talk shows, in newspapers or on public podium, we have to mention these things because otherwise we would not understand this unknown space. Of course, society can not and must not know all the jargon of the youth and the meme of the right. But we should understand the basics of the procedure. Because only the broad society as a whole can really counter extremism effectively. If we do not have the words, we can only meet with consternation and silence.
But that alone does not protect people and democracy.